When I was a kid, I wanted to be on "So You Think You Can Dance." I wanted to be the female version of Kevin Hart- Kevina Hart if you will. I wanted to be Christina Yang. The unfortunate thing is that I can dance well but not well enough. I can tell a decent joke once every few weeks. I’m smart but not smart enough to win awards for the things that go on inside my skull.
We all grow up idolizing people that are incredible at their craft: the Steve Jobs’, the Adeles, the Dick Butkus’. We are inadvertently taught to think that if you want to be successful and live a happy life then you have to be amazing. Extraordinary. Superb. Above average. We see it in schools- the most intelligent get the awards and the most athletic get the trophies. It’s people like you and me that are on the team but aren’t the star player. It’s the people like you and me that get A’s but not A+’s. It’s the people like you and me that are good but not great.
It is utterly the worst thing ever. Watching others excel without lifting a finger as you work your butt off and fall short is almost worse than failing completely. Their God-given talent is something that you work ten if not a hundred times harder for and still are only okay at. Without being over dramatic, it is heart wrenching. You know as well as I do that we can never be as great as they no matter the measures we take or amount of hours trying. We’re just “decent” or “fine” or, my personal favorite, “good-ish.”
But what’s wrong with being “good-ish?” You and I, the “good-ish” people, are the people that get along with everyone because we don’t have a set group in which we identify with. We don’t conform to a certain label because we can’t be put into one specific category. We are the backup singers who play D3 lacrosse and can make really good boxed mac-n-cheese. Adults absolutely adore people like us because you know what we did? We followed their advice to not put all of our marbles in one basket. If marbles were measures of talent, I probably wouldn’t have a lot of them, but you know something? I’d make the most of those marbles and do a little bit of everything with them. Maybe I’ll put one marble in the athletics basket and one in the art basket. I’m not great at either by any means, but I’m doing my best with a smile on my face.
So you do you, boo. If you’re decent at everything that means that you have the ability to do anything. The world is your oyster, young one. Go get third place in that tournament. Go draw a stick-figure self-portrait. Go change the world one average-sized step at a time. You’re important and significant and perfect with your run-of-the-mill abilities. Be happy doing what you love regardless of how well you do it. As long as it floats your boat, who cares if you’re the next Olympic Gold Medalist or Nobel Prize Winner? Not me. Not the people that matter. All those good things that you can do make one great person- you. And let me tell you something, you are really great at being you.
